Chapter 1
The woman appeared like the eternal mother, understanding, but distant out of respect for her troubled neighbor. Oftentimes she would observe him walk in and out of his house, once at morning and once at night, and make a note of his temperament. When he was sad, he would wait a short time before exiting his car, and look wistfully at his hands and his home. When he was anxious he rushed quickly to the front door and looked frequently over his shoulder. What he was scared of, she didn’t know.
Her name, actually, was Caroline, and she was ashamed to admit it, but she wasn’t quite sure of his name either. Caroline didn’t fixate on her neighbor, but merely wondered about him as he appeared and disappeared with sorrowful haste. Her days were rather sparse with purpose, and many times she didn’t want to eat or drink. She was older, but not yet condemned, sixty-seven and retired.
Today, though, Caroline happened to meet the man she viewed from the barrier of a window as he returned home from work. She felt a longing to form some connection with him, but it was clear that he did not reciprocate such intentions. Still, her mind’s curiosity persisted, and inquired to no-one if he was simply too shy, too closed off. Maybe he wanted to talk, but maybe his instinct forbade it.
The rain outside is intermittent, but when it begins, it flows like pouring gasoline, or blood in the clear piping of an IV. I drove home today, with the radio off, and felt as if I could fall deeply asleep even at the shot of a gun. Leaving work made me feel nothing. No harmonious gratitude at the ability to go home, simply beige transition. I was hardly present in the decision to put on my jacket, avoid eye contact with my manager, and get into my car. It’s funny, though. I sat there, not even thinking, just breathing. For no reason, it was basely the ritual to perform at that time. Not long, perhaps three minutes, maybe even less. I think that might be the happiest moment in my life, recently.
All the time, the droning scream of incessant thoughts, incessant seething whispers. It is not often I can escape the sonic entropy of my conscious mind. I picture it as a pale realm, with a faded white horizon encompassing the air and the Earth. The ground is jagged, barren, sprawling flat desolation, gray in hue. There I lie, shivering on the sodden floor, greeted by specters that float by and frequently return. But for once, for one moment. For three minutes. The vast plain still existed, and I did not reside within it. My mind remained crafted in its image, but I was not contained by my mind.
I started the car and, like the carriage of a pilgrim, I began the long path home. I paid little relative attention to the road, yet sufficient enough to keep me aloft. Going slow, the speed limit, I continued on the collective asphalt trail of my journey. The rain came, quicker now than seconds before. It began to slap hard against the glass before me, and imbued a sort of wickedness on the frigid October air. A nature, it exuded, like grains of black-white TV static at maximum volume, or rusted old nails bent at menacing angles from the cracks of a rural wooden fence. I listened to it fall like a man on a submarine, feeling the aquatic atmosphere compress the walls beside him. My eyes were blank voids, twice noted on the equal hemispheres of my face. A cat ran by, ran swiftly, and crushed cathartically beneath the wet rubber heft of my wheels. It was white, but scattered underfoot too quickly. I had no chance to account for its presence, nor look into its two slit eyes before it passed away. I gasped, for a second, then glanced in the mirror. I looked at its tail, straight upward towards the sea of clouds that obscured heaven. I kept pace and, in the tick of a clock, it vanished from sight.
I contemplate now, why did I wait those three minutes? Why did that cat run by, just as I passed it? I have killed someone’s pet, or maybe I have killed a feral animal which roamed and no longer roams. The title changes little. I see myself, oblivious and somehow not present, in the same position as it. Run over five cats, and maybe you have run over me. Grind my flesh into a paste and attempt to distinguish it from that poor creature whose life I took. Walk by the missing poster, printed on bright green paper and stapled to the telephone pole. Understand I will never come back, and in time, buy a new one.
I returned home with the thought of fresh corpses on half of my mind, the other consumed by the ever-present dull knives which slice gently into the temples of my skull.
Breathe. I stand up, out of my shoddy, rusted hatchback. Drops of cold dew descend onto the net of hair above my eyes. I remain still, breathing deeply, intentionally. Streams of cool ice slide over my face like a veil. My body absorbs the wind gusting at an uneven pace, rolling into me like a blanket of purity, wrapping and unraveling around me. For a time, I take a step back and observe myself existing in the ambient creation. The rain, once like blades of steel falling upon the earth, is a comforting element to be consumed by.
Intersecting again with the body I claim ownership, I gazed west, and witnessed the low position of the sun, streaking through schools of clouds.
“Beautiful sunset”
I’m caught off guard. Seconds ago any clamor from the world around me would fail to penetrate my intangible armor, but just now I could hear it. Two words resounded like like the two headlights of a bus one moment before death, and inspired a similar jolt of surprise.
It was my neighbor, well meaning and perhaps herself confused at my solitary idling for what seemed like an abnormal expanse of time.
“Uh, I know it. Gorgeous.”
Tracy, I think her name was, could sense with ease my anxious nature, and gave a sympathetic smile on her aged face. I gave her one last glance out of politeness, closed my car door with a hardly audible click, and walked to my abode in an intentionally slow pace. Grasping with a firm hand the key to my home, one of three on my ring, I inserted the brass cutting, and opened my door in synchronicity with the exhalation of old air from the depths of my lungs.
Is it more burdensome to be alone in despair or to infect others with the wasting consumption of self-hatred? I closed the door behind me.
